Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/619872
Voices channel 19 4 | Overdrive | January 2016 Visit Senior Editor Todd Dills' CHANNEL 19 BLOG at OverdriveOnline.com/channel19 Write him at tdills@randallreilly.com. The ScoopMonkey busi- ness-to-business rating and review service has made strides in recent times by inking partnerships to be the go-to rating service within a variety of load boards. The company's newest offering attempts to address carriers' and brokers' concerns with Compliance, Safety, Accountability's Safety Measurement System. It does so by offering what Eddie Peloke, the company's CEO, calls "technology's response to the ineffectiveness and incompleteness of CSA scores, giving motor carriers the opportunity to share the other side of the story." The tool may have come just a little too late for the near term, however, given the highway bill threw CSA scores behind the curtain, potentially dampening their use in carrier-vetting decisions by brokers and shippers. The bill's language, how- ever, does allow the agency to continue to publish the "absolute measures" underpinning the percentile scores. Those numerical ab- solutes are used in the SMS (see image) to illustrate car- rier violation performance in each BASIC category. Absent percentile rank- ings – and at press time, the SMS website remained unavailable to the public as FMCSA made the changes required by Congress – such measures could become something of a standard for carrier vetting. If they do remain publicly available in the interim, CSA's import for business may well be un- likely to disappear entirely. A carrier's profile in the ScoopMonkey.com system shows its federal CSA pro- file, but the company's new "CSA Score Explainer" allows carriers to provide more context than the raw numbers offer. If you have a ScoopMon- key account set up for your business, you can give the new tool a whirl there. If not, you'll need to register with your DOT number. Find more commentary and links to the site in the Nov. 17 post to the Channel 19 blog. Letting carriers explain CSA scores California gets no shortage of negative coverage, thanks to the endless regulations spewing from the California Air Resources Board, but this photo from reader Jim Wright reminds us that the Golden State can indeed shine. He upload- ed this view from Crescent City in Northern California to Overdrive's Reader Rigs gallery (OverdriveOn- line.com/upload-a-photo), writing, "Heading out after spending the night next to the Pacific Ocean." Let's hope the run was as nice as the stop. Share your own picture and read more via the Oct. 20 post on the blog. One carrier's "measure" in the Vehicle Maintenance BASIC shown changing over five months in the CSA SMS. Coastal view sure beats the truck stop lot COMPENSATION FOR RETIRING OLDER TRUCKS The following was written in response to "WSJ finds CARB just blowing smoke" in the December issue. Running compliant equipment is a cost of doing business. That means we truckers need to find the right way to charge rates that compensate us for the cost of running clean trucks. The movement to retire legacy trucks is taking a foothold where large numbers of trucks operate near large population centers. I just read that the New York/New Jersey ports are look- ing at ways of banning older trucks and finding a way to help truckers meet the cost. If you operate older trucks in rural areas where air quality is not such an issue, that's great. But when you travel to areas where public sentiment de- mands cleaner trucks, you need to get on board. This industry has enough negative press without adding to it. – Bob Ramorino via OverdriveOnline.com Voices_0116.indd 4 12/22/15 10:47 AM